Tsikata Not Sole Signatory to ASSL Accounts - GNPC

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, GNPC, has denied news reports that seek to, directly or indirectly, link the Chief Executive of the organisation, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, and the Ada Songor Salt Limited ASSL, to the Salt Development Project Task Force, SDPTF.

In a press statement signed by Peter Ebo Amissah, GNPC, said in one such instance, a spokesman of a group of people in the Ada area in a demonstration captured on Ghana Television as a news item on Saturday, November 11, 2000 stated categorically that Mr. Tsikata is the sole signatory to the account of SDPTF.

Again in paragraphs 7 and 8 of an Advertiser's Announcement published in the Daily Graphic of Tuesday November 14, 2000 mention was made of a limited inability company the Ada Songor Salt Limited (ASSL), formed under the auspices of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to mine salt in the Songor area under the shelter of the SDPTF. It was also alleged that over ?305,000,000,000.00 (three hundred and five billion cedis) passed through the accounts of ASSL between 1992 and 1997 and that the Ada Traditional Council demands that accounts be rendered by the SDPTF.

The statement added that there is no truth in the allegation that monies have been passed through the accounts of ASSL from the Salt Development Project Task Force to the tune of ?305,000,000,000.00 (three hundred and five billion cedis). "It is also totally untrue that Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata is the sole signatory of any account of the Ada Songor Salt Limited ASSL or the Salt Development Project Task Force SDPTF. He has never been a signatory of any of these two bodies.

"The SDPTF was set up by the Ministry of Mines and Energy and has no relationship whatsoever with ASSL which was registered in 1993 by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation on the basis of a government decision to undertake the implementation of a master plan for the development of salt production in the Ada Songor Lagoon. The ASSL has however undertaken engineering studies and Environmental Impact Assessment and plans for the expansion of production from current levels of 80,000 metric tonnes of almost one million metric tonnes through the construction of modern infrastructure. This will enable export of salt from Ghana particularly for the Nigerian market.

ASSL, has also succeeded in obtaining foreign investor interest for the construction of modern infrastructure estimated at about $25,000,000 (twenty five million dollars). Work on this is expected to start as soon as the situation in the area is resolved, the statement concluded.